Bad municipal water in Kilkenny Ireland

Ireland, 2001 — Kilkenny water is tinged yellow. My coworkers advised me against drinking it, and I had to admit that it didn't look good.

I stopped by a retail shop the other day because it had a little bottle of nasty-looking water in the display window with a small protest placard attached atop it.

Aluminium levels recorded (in Kilkenny) are 136 times above EU limits." — Irish Examiner, 4 April 2003.

I wanted to find out when the problem started—I didn't get a straight answer about that. The man I spoke to did say that he had called the city government about the problem. He said they had told him "Oh, you're the first to complain about it;" that they were unaware of the problem.

Naturally, the city chlorinates the water—rather extensively, according to the man in the shop. My coworkers said that sometimes, people do get sick from drinking it.

Word is that the problem is worse when the rain falls and the river is high. Word is, the "extra" matter in the water is sewage.

I don't know. The bottle in the window has a loose biological-looking sludgy mass settled at the bottom 1/5th of the volume. I've started buying water, even for tea.

— 8 October, 2001